Part One of a Three-Part Series
Change is inevitable in all aspects of life. And your company is no exception. Whether it’s an organization-wide digital transformation, an operational restructuring, or a small shift in process, change is happening.
While shifts in your business are pretty much a guarantee (it’s something you encounter to some degree every day – whether by choice or by foist), how can you set yourself and your organization up for greater change success? It’s not simply knowing when change is necessary, but ensuring that you have the tools, tactics, and tactics to achieve your desired results. It’s by developing a culture of innovative thinking and change readiness in your leaders and teams.
Change Initiatives by the Numbers
Are you change-ready? Unfortunately, the latest statistics paint a not-so-encouraging picture for organizational change initiatives. Less than 30% of organizations successfully execute change initiatives, with more than 65% of their employee’s reporting burnout or overwhelm during the process—and only 35% of those employees feeling as though they were prepared when change was presented to them.
Change Preparation and the Missing Puzzle Piece
Making a successful organizational change is only possible with careful and thorough preparation. Typically, this preparation includes strategizing why a change is needed, communicating what will be changing, deciding where the change will be implemented, and planning when the change will happen.
But there’s a missing, critical piece of the puzzle that is often overlooked… Who will be designing, adopting, and reinforcing the change?
Preparing People Is the Priority
There’s a “law” of organizational change that says, “Change would be easy if it weren’t for the people”. While it may have garnered a chuckle, “breaking” this law by neglecting this key factor (or assuming they’ll just do whatever is asked of them with ease), can have not-so-funny consequences. Effective change readiness depends on preparing the people in your organization who will take part in designing the change—and who will be affected by it. Because change only and always happens at the individual level…and those individuals can – collectively – make or break your change success.
Many of the people in your organization know that a specific change is needed, or that change is necessary for success and growth. But you can’t assume they have the knowledge or the ability to actively participate in making that change—or to embrace it. So, it’s essential to prepare individuals for the emotional and psychological (aka, the very human and “people”) aspects of change.
A New Way of Doing Requires New Ways of Thinking
Change is about abandoning what’s known, familiar, and understood and adopting something new. That includes adopting new ways of thinking about how you approach change with your leaders and teams. Change readiness stresses the importance of preparing individuals for change by helping them develop skills such as growth mindsets, emotional intelligence, and effective communication. Change readiness also depends on assembling collaborative project teams who will embrace healthy conflict and help guide others through change. That individual preparation and group guidance can be the difference between a change initiative that succeeds … and one that fumbles, flops, or fails.
To Embrace Change, Embrace Change Readiness
Everyone embraces a change that delivers positive, meaningful, impactful results. But to ensure those results don’t miss the mark, you must prepare leaders and teams to successfully transition into an unknown, uncertain, and unfamiliar future. You can do this by developing a culture of innovative thinking and change readiness.
In the next part of our series on change readiness, we’ll examine how you can begin to measure your change readiness…and the steps you can take to develop change-ready leaders, teams, and culture.
Want to learn more? Explore this topic with us during our upcoming webinar!
Join us on May 30th at 11 AM for an engaging discussion that will provide valuable insights and actionable strategies.
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Amy Yackowski is the Founder and Chief Evolution Officer of Painted Porch Strategies, a stoically-based training and advisory team dedicated to the principle that there is untapped potential and opportunity in your leaders and teams to create meaningful, lasting transformation that sticks. With over 18 years of experience working in and alongside staffing organizations embarking on change, Amy and her amazing team offer training programs, workshops, coaching, and advisory centered on developing change-ready teams who can lead at the speed of change. Visit Painted Porches for more information, https://www.paintedporchstrategies.com/.
About Newbury Partners
Newbury Partners brings years of experience as technology advisors to the Staffing Industry. We specialize in providing tried and true best practice methodologies through every consulting, implementation, reporting and analytics, development, and strategy engagement. Our commitment to our clients is to provide honest and transparent communication to create lifelong partnerships.
For more information, visit www.newburypartners.com.
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